Creating Your Own Job Description

Today I was coaching someone who wants to make a career change. Besides the advice of asking her to recall what she loved to do as a kid that made time fly, I told her to go to a place where she could imagine what having her dream career would feel like. Not what she'd be doing, specifically, just how good it would feel. Something about actually feeling what a new life would be like gets us to a different part of ourselves, I believe, to where we can start to access the greatness in ourselves.

At the end of our session she said, "If you get any ideas about what job I should be doing, let me know." Now, we talked about things she loves to do, just haven't put any cold, hard ideas down on paper. When I was sending her a follow-up email, I got the idea that she's searching for something that doesn't exist. Yet.

If I was to have looked for my job as a listing in the newspaper or on one of those lists of careers you get from the high school guidance counselor, I never would have found it. In fact, I'm still defining the boundaries of my profession, because I love to do lots and lots of things and keep trying to tweak what I do to include as many things that bring me joy as possible.

As such, I instructed her to write her own job title, job description, and job duties. You know when you see those formal job listings and they say things like:

Job Title: Consumer Information Systems Analyst Coordinator

Job Description: Report information from Consumer data bases into System X filing box while maintaining spotless shoes and perfect spine alignment

Job Duties: Finish as much work as possible during 16 hour days while assisting all other departments with their assignments, re-designing coffee machine dispensary, and hopping up and down on one foot.

Scary, boring, and vague, right? What if you could write your OWN job description? How fun would that be? You can put whatever you want on it, including things that you can't believe anyone will possible pay you for, like life coaching. Oh wait, people DO pay for that - but it didn't even exist as a profession 15 years ago!

Go do it, I know you're bored at work, so write up your own perfect career!

Be Joyful!